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Chapter 1: Now Sit Down and Listen

So the first thing to be understood: a master creates trust, not obedience. A master never asks for obedience. And if somebody asks for obedience, escape from that person. He is in search of a slave. He will kill you, he will destroy your freedom, he will condition your mind. He will give you a pattern to live by. He will not make you available to gods; he will not make you a god - a god means freedom, absolute freedom. Obedience is slavery; obedience is a beautiful name for slavery. Whosoever creates obedience in you is dangerous, is your enemy. A master does not create obedience, he creates trust - and that is a totally different thing, altogether different.

What is trust? It is a feeling, it has nothing to do with your believing. Trust is a feeling. Trust is a feeling that this man has entered somewhere, we don’t know where.this man has moved into some new dimension, we don’t know what. A feeling that this man has wings into the unknown, a feeling that it will be good to go with this man on this pilgrimage.

A master creates trust in you so that you can gather courage. By seeing him, by being with him, by being available to his vibrations, his pulsations, by and by you gather courage - not obedience but courage. An obedient person is a dull person. An obedient person becomes unintelligent, he becomes dependent. He always looks for the order; he always waits - somebody has to tell him what to do. No, a master cannot make you a cripple, he cannot give you crutches to lean upon.

When you come to a master you already have too many crutches. He takes them away. He helps you to stand on your feet. A master creates you as you should be in your authenticity. A master helps you only to be yourself and nothing else. So the master cannot have a pattern and cannot have a general statement. To each individual it is going to happen in a different way.

First thing: obedience is part of politics, not of religion. The priest asks for obedience, the politician asks for obedience: “Follow me, obey me! Never do anything against my commandment. Remain always confined to the territory that I am giving to you, never go beyond it.” He is destroying your very soul. That’s what priests have done down the ages, they have killed people! People are no more alive. Somebody is a Muslim and somebody is a Hindu and somebody is a Sikh and somebody is a Jaina and somebody is a Buddhist and somebody is a Christian - but where are real people? These are all plastic names. Where are religious people?

Where is Nanak? You can find the Sikh, but where is Nanak? You can find the Christian, but where is Jesus? And you can find Buddhists, but where is Buddha? So many religious people and not a single religious person will you find. Crowds clamoring around temples and gurudwaras and churches and mosques, but all slaves - slaves of the dead past.

A master frees you from the past, because a master frees you from your memory. A master does not give you anything to learn: he proposes a course of unlearning. He says, “Unlearn whatsoever you have learned. Drop it, it is all dust. Clean your mirror completely of all dust. When the mirror is clean, God is reflected. If your mirror carries too much of the scripture, God will not be reflected.”